Family photography

For my anniversary, Stacey got me a gift certificate to have our family pictures taken. You see, I have talked about this for about 3 years! The last time I had my picture taken professionally with my family was when E was 3 weeks old. YEP! Not even with BOWDEN! We attempted with a timer, but no so much. I was so postpartum, and drugged.... don't know what I was thinking! I met Matt about 2.5 years ago at a photography workshop in Austin and knew he would be the guy when the time came. His photography is incredible. I talk about him from time to time with Stacey, about photography, or will have STP even look at his blog, so when Stacey thought of the perfect gift, he knew just who to call!

I was SOOOOOO surprised, maybe even yelping a bit when I opened it. I knew I wanted to wait until after the first of the year to schedule. 4 out of 5 of us celebrate a birthday in the first 3 months of the year, so I thought it would be a great time. We picked a date for February. I scheduled our presession consultation for a week before our session.

I saw the dress I wanted Emaline to wear about January, bought it and then started working on everyone elses outfits. Parker's was easy. So was Bowden's. I knew Stacey's would be easy.

Then my friend got sick.

Matt called me the day before we were scheduled for our consultation. He needed to reschedule. Which was perfect because my friend was going to have her legs amputated the next day and I wanted to be at the hospital. We rescheduled for the next week.

Well, the next week Matt called me about our new date for our consultation and our shoot that Saturday. HE HAD THE FLU! I told him, no problem because my sweet friend Jenny had passed away and I just didn't think that I had it in me. We rescheduled for the next Wednesday and Saturday. He posted scripture on my Facebook. Cool guy.


We met. He asked me to describe the kids....
Parker-sweet, sensitive, a bit hard to photograph, due to his 'poisey' self.
Emaline- fun, creative, EASY to photograph, takes direction
Bowden- wear your running shoes
Stacey- well, I almost feel weird putting this up here! BUT, I said full of love for Jesus. A servant.
and then asked about me.... the first word I could think of was: hurt. I did add fun later.


My outfit came together on Thursday before my pictures! I was completely stressed out. I went into every store in the mall and most stores out of the mall. I grabbed E and we ran to SteinMart. Found shoes and green shirt. Already had white shirt and jeans. Perfect! WAIT! Accessories!!! Took 2 kids to Charming Charlies, one sleeping, to look for a necklace. I spent forever looking through the green section, when I saw the beautiful silver butterfly and remembered the sweet story that Caprock Elementary told Malaya when they gave her a sweet James Avery butterfly necklace. About how Jenny went to sleep, much like a catepillar, and the next time we see her she will be an beautiful creation, but in HEAVEN! I bought that necklace and was done.
I LOVED our session! It was so sweet. I loved being on the other side of the camera. My kids behaved...I had prepared them a bit. Of course Bowden was all over the place. I almost didn't want the session to end. That meant we had to return to our busy lives.

We scheduled our viewing for 2 weeks after. BUUUTTTT! he called me when I was in Paris and said that he was finished and could show them to us early! YEAH! We scrambled and I met Stacey in Plano, my kids played with my mom at McDonalds...and went to pick our images.

Matt did an amazing job presenting our images. I did cry. We were there FOREVER! Stacey and I had the hardest time picking our images. WE WANTED THEM ALL! I now know how my clients feel! It was torture.

Well, here is a link to our photos.